A/N: Um, here.

*hands to reader*

*runs away*

The cave's acoustics are…loud. Bruce's usual low growl isn't affected much, and normal speaking voices are all right, but anything above that becomes distorted, magnified.

In the far corner of the med bay, under the influence of a dangerous cocktail of Scarecrow's fear toxin and God knows what else, Damian screams and thrashes helplessly.

The rounded dome of rock surrounding them amplifies his son's terror, sending the cries bouncing back, again and again, echoing in a dreadful cacophony of terror. The effect is…disturbing.

From his seat at the computer console, Bruce minutely hunches his shoulders, the frown lines deepening behind his still-present cowl, but allows himself no other outward sign of discomposure. There is a sample of his son's blood on the table in front of him, and an antidote to this sinister new poison is being synthesized at the fastest rate possible.

It's not fast enough, he thinks as his youngest emits another hair-raising screech. Not when the ten-year-old has enough toxin running through his bloodstream to fell a full-grown man.

His gut clenches painfully. Every instinct, everything in him is demanding that he move, that he force his stiff, frozen limbs into something resembling life, and do something to help his child.

He is, his mind rationalizes. Damian's mind and body are not going to return to normal until the system creates the antidote. He knows that, logically, there's nothing he can really do. But somewhere else, deep down inside him wants desperately to go to his son.

There's no need, that objective side of him insists again. Dick is with the boy, as always, Alfred close by. Damian has an abundance of caretakers, people far more qualified to soothe a child's fear than Bruce is.

Still, he can't seem to stop his head from turning, straining discretely to keep watch over his offspring.

Dick bends close over the boy, mask and gloves discarded on the floor. His hands move constantly, one petting through the child's sweat-soaked hair over and over and the other attempting to loosen the boy's too-tight muscles. Dick's voice rises and falls steadily, unceasing, murmuring nonsense and truth in the child's ear, against his temple.

Damian cries out again, in frustration as much as panic. They'd been forced to restrain him, for his own safety, and his wrists and ankles are tethered in strong leather cuffs to the bed. Bruce fears that he will injure his bare wrists, pulling at the restraints as he does.

A glance at the screen reveals that the antidote is still not yet finished, and Bruce slams a fist onto the arm of his chair in anger. He jerks off the cowl, pushing his hand up through his hair.

The effect of the toxin is not abating. If anything, it is worsening with time. Damian moans inconsolably, and words begin to push through the ramblings now, but Bruce does not find himself comforted.

"No! No, please," Damian shouts hoarsely.

"Dami, Dami, I'm here, right here, it's all right," Dick pleads, and Bruce is suddenly standing, pacing.

"Grays—nngh—"

"Yes, hey, it's me," Dick gasps, but any lucidity the boy might have had is gone in an instant and his screams ratchet up a level.

"No, please, don't," he pants, "I can't—don't hurt them—GRAYSON!"

Dick, if possible, plasters himself closer to his Robin, curling over the bed protectively. Bruce can see the pain on Alfred's face, feel it on his own.

Again his son pleads for Dick, and—outside the worry for his son—there is a tiny twinge that his child does not call his own name. It's his own fault, he knows, and he can't find it in him to be sorry for that. He'd trusted the boy into Dick's care, and the two are only closer for it. He has no regrets there. He only wishes that, perhaps, his eldest son might not have replaced him in his youngest's heart.

Alfred is quietly at his side, and Bruce cannot quite take comfort from the gentle hand on his shoulder, not against the background of Damian's pained cries.

He hadn't thought it could get worse, but it does.

"Mother," he hears suddenly and distinctly.

"Mother, wait, I can—please! I'm sorry! Wait!" There are tears streaming from the boy's tightly closed eyes that he can see from here. Damian arches from the bed then goes completely limp, defeated.

"Please," the child whimpers, "Mama, p-please."

Bruce swears sharply, turning his back. The antidote is nearly there, and he grips the chair until his knuckles turn white, urging it to finish.

He hears Dick attempting to gather Damian up, trying desperately to fit himself into an impossible shape, to fill that empty space that makes the boy cry for his absent mother.

This, however, only seems to agitate the child further, and Damian begins to thrash again, voice increasing in volume.

"Father!"

Bruce goes abruptly still and cold, heart stuttering in his chest.

The finished antidote shrills, and he snatches the tube from the machine, tearing for the med bay.

"Father," Damian shrieks, with rising pitch, seemingly incapable of anything else by this point, "FATHER! FATHER, PLEASE!"

And Bruce is there, replacing Dick's frantic hands with his own, drawing Damian to sit against him and tipping the antidote swiftly and carefully through the boy's chapped lips. Damian arches weakly, but swallows when Bruce's hand covers his mouth and nose. His head tosses, eyes still wide and blind to reality.

"I'm here," Bruce murmurs, "I'm here, son."

He meets Dick's eyes across the bed, finds commiseration and a reflection of his own exhaustion there as Damian sinks slowly back to the sheets, his gasps abating to softer, hiccupping sobs. He and Dick make quick work of the cuffs, rubbing gently at the redness around small wrists and ankles.

Bruce eases back, making room for Dick again at the return of his son's sanity. But there are two small fingers clutched immediately and tightly in the edge of his cape.

"F-Father," Damian forces through an abused larynx, shuddering still.

Bruce's eyes widen, flicking quickly to Dick, but his oldest son only smiles softly, sadly, and draws back minutely.

He wants him. His son wants him.

Damian is draped listlessly across the bed, exhausted, but his eyes follow Bruce's movements. He seems afraid to speak but for that word, and only sighs once, shakily, the thickness of tears still evident in his throat.

Bruce clears his throat, and in a moment of sudden courage, slips his arms swiftly and decisively beneath his son and lifts the boy into his arms, settling onto the bed in his place.

"It's alright now," he says, cradling the child across his body. "Everything is alright."

Damian shivers, wet eyelashes fluttering against Bruce's neck, head tilted uncertainly on his shoulder. Dick is there, tugging the abused sheet out from under them and tucking it securely around Damian's chilled body. Bruce meets his gaze gratefully, and Dick only tilts him half a grin, running a hand soothingly down the boy's back before withdrawing again.

"Father," Damian tries again.

Bruce's wide hand follows Dick's path up and down his son's back. "Yes, Damian," he answers.

He feels the boy struggle to swallow. Alfred approaches, and Bruce holds his son so that he can more easily drink the water held to his lips.

He coughs, sputters, and Bruce pulls him close again, thumbing a single escaped droplet of water from his chin.

Damian wilts comfortably against him, and Bruce wonders at the curious ability of children to go very rapidly and thoroughly boneless when tired.

"I don't," the child asks uncertainly, brokenly, "have to leave?"

Dick makes a strangled noise from the chair, and Alfred puts a hand to his mouth. Bruce closes his eyes against the sudden and painful squeeze of his heart.

"No, Damian," he says against his son's hair, "we're staying right here."